


Stones Taught Me to Fly

by theshipsfirstmate



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/M, Felicity Feels, post 4x16 fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-25
Updated: 2016-03-25
Packaged: 2018-05-29 00:06:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6350971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theshipsfirstmate/pseuds/theshipsfirstmate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>post 4x16 Felicity introspection</p>
<p>"She doesn’t get to have a partner. Just like she doesn’t get to have a father. And Felicity learned the lesson long ago about lying to herself."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stones Taught Me to Fly

_A/N: Idk, I started thinking about those vows at that end scene and then this turned into a whole other thing. It’s me, so it’s angsty._

_Title from “[Cannonball](http://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D3yqM--IMkX4&t=ZTk3Yjk4YjFmMjc5YjMzZmMyMzU3YTI0OGE0YzMxNjliODA4OWIwOCxkNzlCMW03cQ%3D%3D)” by Damien Rice._

**Stones Taught Me to Fly**

About a month or so after her father left them for good, Felicity got the second-worst news of her young life.

“Bring Your Dad to School Day!” Her teacher, Mrs. Becker, had announced the event like it was some kind of national holiday. “Next Friday, after lunch, all of your fathers can come in for a little celebration! They can tell us about their job, share stories, pictures…”

Felicity pinched her leg under her desk, a technique she had perfected over the last few weeks to keep any stubborn tears at bay, and gave a cursory glance around the classroom. One, two, three, four faces started to fall, before Mrs. Becker continued cheerfully.

“Of course, it doesn’t have to be your father!” she chirped, handing out slips of paper to each member of the class. Every sentence from this woman’s mouth ended with an exclamation point. Mostly, Felicity found it charming. She loved school, and Mrs. Becker was kind and understanding and quietly gave her accelerated work without making a big deal about it. Today though, was something else entirely. “You can bring an uncle, a grandfather, a big brother, anyone!”

That afternoon, when she trudged through the front door of her grandparents’ apartment, Zayde Sam knew it right away. She wasn’t as good at hiding her feels back then, and her first mistake was dropping her backpack to the ground like the parental signature form crumpled at the bottom weighed as much as a brick.

“Why the long face, Bubula?” he asked, switching off the baseball game on TV. “You run out of books to read again?”

“No Zayde,” she sighed, letting a smile twitch the corners of her mouth at the memory of her mother’s father bragging to all his friends when she had exhausted the meager supply of non-picture books in her first grade classroom. “There are plenty of books in the fourth grade. Besides, I still have half the ones we got at the library last week to read.”

“So what then?”

“It’s nothing.” She picked up her bag again, and went to finish her homework at the beautiful oak desk in the spare room that doubled as her grandfather’s study, ignoring suspicious eyes on her back.

They were only a few weeks into this new normal, but Felicity already knew the nights that her mother would be done with work in time to pick her up for dinner were few and far between. That was mostly okay. Bubbe was a great cook, the three of them would play cards together once her homework was done, and there was always…

“No rugelach,” Zayde said sternly after dinner, taking the tray from his wife, and giving a knowing nod in response to her raised eyebrow. When he put the cookies on top of the refrigerator, high out of reach, Felicity’s frown turned to a full-on scowl. “Not until you tell me what’s wrong.”

“Fine,” she mumbled, storming back to the study to fetch the slip of paper from the bottom of her backpack. “Here!”

She threw the crumpled ball at him, or in his direction at least. It landed a few feet from his chair, but she didn’t bother to watch him pick it up, storming back the study with traitorous tears burning her eyes. She sat in the swivel chair for a few minutes, eyes squeezed tight to keep them from leaking, and then she heard a plate set down on the desk in front of her and smelled her grandfather’s aftershave to her right.

“Bubula, sweetheart, your father’s a real schmuck.” His soft tone only sharpened on that last word, the closest he ever got to swearing, even about a man he never really liked and now, she knew, despised. “But I don’t want you to ever think you deserve to miss out on something like this.”

“I’m a man you can count on,” he told her, sweeter than the cookie he had brought for her, “forever and always.”

It wasn’t a promise he could keep. Felicity knew that at nine as well as she did when the man, her beloved Zayde, died in her sophomore year of college. Too busy and broke to buy a plane ticket home from Boston, she had cried all weekend in her dorm room, recalling how he signed her paper that night without any further discussion or hesitation, and charmed her entire classroom the next week.

He was terrific, she remembered. He told the best stories, pulled coins from behind some of the boys’ ears, even made Mrs. Becker laugh until she blushed. Felicity loved him for it, and hated herself for the resentment that sat in her stomach like a pit the whole day long. Because her Zayde was wonderful, yes, but he wasn’t her father. The day was perfect, except that it was wrong.

It was the same feeling that gnawed at her gut as she dressed herself for their fake wedding, as she saw a reflection in the mirror that was every bit a bride, but so little of her. The wrong dress, the wrong hair, the wrong kind of aching in her chest. She tried smiling at herself, but even her reflection knew it was really a grimace.

There was no one to walk her down the aisle, and it wasn’t until she was hiking up her own skirt, hustling towards Oliver with her eyes fixed anywhere but his, that she realized there were only two men she had ever really considered for the job. One of them was in a Jewish cemetery in Nevada. The other was running surveillance and murmuring over a comm link in her ear. Both of them would have considered it an honor, she knew that, just like she knew both of them would have seen right through her callous dismissal of this heartbreaking sham of a ceremony.

She half-listened to Oliver’s vows, knowing the combination of his earnest, almost pleading tone and those eyes that never fail to weaken her knees might be too much to bear. She’s faced down crime lords and assassins, met the murderous stares of Damien Dahrk and Ra’s al Ghul without flinching, but the way he looked at her in that wedding dress was the closest she’s ever come to totally undone.

When his hands wrapped warm around her own, sliding that ring into place once again, her heart broke clean in two, and at his next words, icy water flooded in to freeze the halves apart for good.

_“I’ll never lie to you again.”_

She was almost glad when the arrow they knew was coming landed at their feet, and when the next hit him in the chest, Felicity mentally scolded herself for the worry that unconsciously jolted through her. It was part of the plan, all of it, right up until the part where she was standing in front of a psychopath, trying to convince her that love was worth living for.

The worst part is, she wasn’t lying. Not to Carrie Cutter, anyway. Oliver did give her life a purpose, as much as she gave him her light, and she tries not to think too hard about what they’ll have left of either without each other. But the flip side of that is what’s become obvious in the weeks since he told her about his son. Because for all the joy he’s brought to her life, he also possesses the power to take it all away. And the only thing that hurts more than not being with him is imagining another lie, another debilitating crack in the foundation on which they would build their life together.

She doesn’t get to have a partner. Just like she doesn’t get to have a father. And Felicity learned the lesson long ago about lying to herself. In school the next year, she had stood alone in that classroom, straight and tall. There weren’t any tears to hold back, the only thing that had hurt was lying to a man she loved, telling her Zayde that fifth graders didn’t do “Bring Your Dad to School Day.”

In the lair with Oliver that night, it’s much of the same. He almost broke through in those moments after the police hauled Cupid away, almost worked his way back in when her defenses were lowered. She had felt naked to his hopeful gaze in those few fraught seconds, even through the heavy layers of taffeta and lace. But their time in the courtroom steeled her spine for good, reminded her of all the reasons she needs to get out now or forever hold her breath.

She was wrong about them, that’s what she tells him, trying hard to ignore that it was her lust for adventure that tore them away from the peaceful bliss of Ivy Town in the first place. In fact, the only thing she says that’s 100% true is that she loves him. The rest is just fear, sharpened into daggers, that she’s wielding to protect the scraps that are left of her heart.

She tells him he doesn’t need her, and watches the blow land, almost physically. She tells him he can’t change, even though she’s seen it, with eyes that have been fixed on him for years now. She tells him to keep the ring, for good this time, and has to shut her eyes against the tide of emotion as his go dark and watery.

But maybe the biggest lie she tells him that night is the one about letting go, about already being gone. Because there’s a USB stick in her pocket – a remote access key to the entire Green Arrow network – that tells a different story. She can’t stand by his side, not anymore, but she’s not sure she’ll ever be able to stop herself from watching his back.


End file.
